Marks and Spencer in Liverpool, England.
Moomusician/Shutterstock
- A Marks & Spencer shopper received more than 100 texts featuring photos of other customer parcels.
- The customer, Tom, said he received the messages after he purchased an order for bedding.
- The texts included links to GPS locations and photos of packages on people’s doorsteps.
A shopper at UK retailer Marks & Spencer was bombarded with more than 1oo text messages, which included links to the GPS locations and photos of other customers’ packages.
BBC News reported on the story.
The 28-year-old customer, named only as Tom, told the outlet he was inundated with the messages immediately after purchasing bedding from the store online.
Tom said that no personal details of other customers were shared in the links he received, but he could see the exact location and photos of parcels left on their doorsteps.
“Someone could have used that information to drive around and pick all those parcels up,” he said.
The shopper said he “kept getting loads of messages at once.” He added: “There’s over 100 texts and I had a few two days after I rang up and told them about it.”
Tom said that, luckily, his phone was on silent but he could see all the notifications coming through and “it was quite distracting.”
He added: “I can imagine for the other people this has been happening to it’s pretty annoying.”
The glitch prompted an apology from Marks & Spencer after Tom complained.
Per BBC News, Marks & Spencer wrote to the shopper: “While we believe there is no risk of harm to customers, we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
It added: “We are continually working to keep your personal information as safe as possible. I hope we have reassured you how seriously we have taken this.”
Marks and Spencer did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment made outside of normal working hours.
The retailer told BBC News that only 1% of orders were affected by the technical error.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
